Seth Trimble earns Player of the Game after drilling the game-winner over Duke

Let’s make one thing clear from the start—Carolina does not win that game without Caleb Wilson carrying them through the first half. Carolina went into the locker room down 12, didn’t get off a shot before the horn, and they were in real trouble against a Duke team that didn’t even really have Cameron Boozer going off like he did in the second. The only reason they were that close was a Herculean 17 points by Wilson, who seemed to do everything he could to back up his preseason words.

Let’s be honest, though — there’s no one else that you could give this award to other than the senior leader, the Ben & Jerry’s shop owner, the one guy who played in this game last year and remembered losing to them three times, and the other reason Carolina was even in the game in the first half thanks to his six early points. You have to give it to Seth Trimble for all of that, but especially for this:

It was just a spectacular play from the jump. It starts with the way that Derek Dixon handled the ball, and that Caleb Wilson was basically used as a decoy to draw almost the entirety of the Duke defense down under the basket. Carolina just needed one shot, so of course they would go to a big — at least, that seemed to be what Duke thought. Instead, Dixon goes up in the air to draw the defenders, gets it over to the wide-open Seth Trimble who puts it up in rhythm and strips the nets clean at the (near) buzzer.

If it were almost anyone else trying that shot, you may wince, but it turns out he was so open that several watching the play thought that Dixon was throwing the ball away instead of to the wide-open Trimble. Trimble knew the play was coming to him, and the senior gave fans another moment that will be played for decades in this rivalry.

An amazing thing about this series is that there really aren’t that many buzzer beaters, and even fewer that would lead to a win. Walter Davis had his half-court heave that just tied the score, and Jeff Capel had his heave that also tied the score. Carolina ended up winning both games, but the only buzzer-beater in modern memory has been the shot made by Austin Rivers in Chapel Hill. You know the one that ESPN plays every…single…time this game comes up? They do it not only because of just how big a shot it was, but just how rare that specific shot is for a rivalry that has been so historically close.

Seth Trimble gave Carolina a moment that will be played long after his basketball career is over.

Yes, it technically wasn’t a buzzer-beater as there were 0.4 seconds left on the clock, but just like people are going to forget that Capel’s shot didn’t actually win the game for Duke, the replay that people will see is going to be Trimble wide-open, nailing a three in front of the bench with the clock going to 0.0 and him hitting Duke with the “Go to sleep.” With it, Seth Trimble may have changed the course of the UNC season, validate that Hubert Davis may be, in fact, the coach for the future, and announce to the country that the Tar Heels are a force to be reckoned with having put that disastrous west coast trip behind them.

Beyond all that, though, Seth Trimble’s name will be spoken for generations along side people who have their names etched in Carolina lore based on what they did in this rivalry. Caleb Wilson may go on to be the best NBA player Carolina has produced in a long time, but Seth Trimble is going to have a moment that lives forever in Tar Heel lore.

So yeah, he gets Player of the Game for this one.